The Edge Of 3 O'clock

The Creature

It's July 8th, the birds are chirping, it's beautiful outside and everyone is dead. It's honestly not how I thought the end of the world would look like, I thought it would be a big bang or even a zombie apocalypse but no. It's almost like the whole world went to sleep and never woke up, and that's exactly what happened.

The first night before it all happened I was walking onto a stage, I could hear the audience cheering but it felt like something was wrong. They weren't cheering for me, it was then that I felt a presence behind me. I turned around and saw a large creature with glowing red eyes staring at me.
"Did you bring a present?" It says in a low tone. I shake my head, "N-No.."
I can see it narrow it's eye's, "Check your pockets." I move one of my hands to the pocket of my hawaiian shirt and I pull out a bottle of sleeping pills. "Give it to me." It spoke impatiently. I didn't question the creature and quickly undid the cap. I tossed it toward the creature and it opened its mouth and sucked in all the pills creating a vortex. After all the pills were gone it spoke once more, "Beware of the audience."

"Ryan? Hey, Ryan!"

I jerked awake at the sound of my name being called "Huh?" I looked around and saw Adam, Jack, and Austin looking at me with raised eyebrows as I was leaning backwards in my chair.
"You okay? You fell asleep and knocked over your computer." Adam says as I look down to see my laptop on the ground and thankfully not smashed, "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I just had the weirdest fuckin dream." I say while I bend down to pick up my laptop.
"I shit you not, you were just mumbling to yourself then you slid your computer off of the desk." I could hear some worry in Austin's voice. It was my turn to raise my eyebrows, "Really?" "Yes, you weirdo." Austin says in a joking manner as I check to make sure the laptop still works. I sigh in relief as I see the song that I was in the middle of producing still there. "What was your dream about?" Jack asks.

Now if you need to know one thing is that, my dreams, they aren't your usual dreams. They are, as you say, morbid and, for lack of a better term, weird. What's even weirder is that after I wake up from one, I can still remember it, vividly. In every single one of my dreams there is this big creature always saying 'Beware of the audience'. I don't tell my brothers or my friends this because either, A, they will think I'm the weirdest person on this earth or, B, they will become way too overprotective.

"Ah, I honestly don't remember." I say lying through my teeth. Jack looks at me with a knowing look, "Okay..how about we call it a night. We got a lot done and we need a break." I nod as I yawn and stretch back into the chair. I closed my laptop and set it back on the desk I knocked it off of, I saw Adam staring at me almost as if he was staring into my soul.
"What?" I ask as Austin and Jack go to the kitchen to grab a snack. "I can tell you're lying, you know." I shake my head, "No, I'm not lying, I really don't remember the dream okay. Let it go." Adam glares at me, "I'm not gonna let it go Ryan, you've been acting a lot more strange recently. Whenever you sleep you either scream, cry, or mumble." I went to interject but he stopped me, "No, don't give me the 'Oh that's normal' bullshit cause this has been happening every night for the past 4 months."
I go to talk back but my phone buzzes with a text from Cat. I look at it but not before I see a 'This is not over' look from Adam before he joins the others in the kitchen. I sigh as I look at the message, it reads 'Hey, I'm gonna be going to a party that my friend invited me too. I'll see you tomorrow, k?' I smile and write back, 'Okay, I'll see you tomorrow! Love you.' I set my phone down and get up from the chair, I crack my back and make my way to the couch and turn on the TV. Adam, Jack, and Austin come back with snacks and drinks, I go onto Netflix and put on the Office.
A couple hours go by and it's almost 3 O'clock. I was starting to nod off and that's when I got a text from Cat that something was wrong. I quickly got up from the couch startling everyone who was somehow miraculously awake.
"What's wrong?" Jack asks with some worry, "Cat just texted me that something was wrong. I'll be right back." I say putting on a coat since it was fall and night time. "I'll go with you." Adam says as he gets up and stretches his limbs.
"No, it's okay. I'll be quick." I say wanting to go alone just in case something bad happens. Adam just shakes his head stubbornly, I sigh knowing I won't win this fight and nod, "Fine, let's go."
Me and Adam make our way out of the apartment and walk to the party where Cat was. It was silent, a bit too silent for New York City but I didn't think twice since it was now 3am. We make it to the party and see Darrell, Cat's friend, outside.
I ran up to him, "Hey, have you seen Cat around?" He nods, "Yeah, but everyone bounced like 10 minutes ago." I tilt my head, "Okay.. where's Bryan?" I ask. "Oh, the host with the most. He's inside passed the fuck out." I sigh and make my way inside with Adam following, "Yo, where ya going?" I hear Darrell ask. "I'm waking up Bryan so I can ask where Cat went."
"Bryan, hey Bryan?" I say gently shaking him. There's no answer so I start to gently tap his face, "Bryan?" I start to shake him and still no answer, I then see that his whole body was still. "He isn't breathing."
"What?" Adam and Darrell both say at the same time. "What did you have at this party?" I ask Darrell.
"All there was, was some beer and alcohol, that's it." He says in a small whisper.
"Bryan! Bryan!" I say as I start CPR on his body.
"Call 911!" I yell to Adam as I continue chest compressions. I see Darrell leave at the mention of any cops, I heard from Cat that he was still on his probation.
He nods and dials them, "Ryan..there's a busy signal."
"Fuckin..what?" I say in disbelief. Adam put his phone on speaker and he was right, there was just a busy signal.
"Damnit.." I look to Adam, "Help me lift him." He comes over and helps me with him, he gets his right while I'm on his left. "What're we gonna do? We don't have a car." Adam asks in a strained voice due to the dead weight we were lifting.
"The hospital is right down the road. It should take about 10 minutes on foot." I say as we start to walk down the sidewalk to the hospital.
On our way there I called Cat, but it went to voicemail. I left her a voice message, "Hey, listen if you drank anything at the party make sure to call or go to the hospital. Someone might've laced the drinks. Call me back."
We made it to the hospital and we waved down the first people we saw, it was a group of nurses and doctors. "Can someone please help us!" I say and when they turned around I noticed something strange, some of them seemed to be crying. I noticed a nurse come towards us, it was Alba. "Ryan? Adam? What's the emergency?"
"I-It's Cat's friend, we think he might've drank a laced drink." I say with a small break in my voice.
Alba nods, "Okay, lemme look at him. Set him down on the ground."
I tilt my head, "What? Like right here? On the sidewalk?"
"Yeah." She says shortly. "What? Shouldn't we put him on a gurney, get some paramedics." I say incredulously.
"That's not an option right now, so put him down on the sidewalk."
I give in, me and Adam gently set him down on the ground and Alba gets onto her knees and checks his vitals. It didn't take her long, she stood back up and looked at me and Adam, "I'm very sorry, but Cat's friend is dead."
I nod, "Okay..but shouldn't we get a diagnosis on what happened?" Alba shakes her head, "I'm sorry but now's not the best time."
"What the hell does that mean?" Adam asks a bit impatiently. "I think it's best if you take a couple minutes to collect yourselves, call the deceased man's parents and leave the man here."
I do a double take, "I'm sorry, what? You want us to leave Bryan here, on the sidewalk? What the hell is going on, where are the paramedics, why are those nurses and doctors crying?" I say in a loud voice.
Alba sighs, "Something happened last night. All of our patients died in their sleep."